Champion Spotlight
Recommended Items
Tips
- Playing As
- One of the key ways for to get guaranteed Soul Fragments from his passive is landing his at max range. This guarantees that Swain's target is given no chance to dodge the incoming root.
- You do not have to cast as soon as you are able to. Try to benefit from 's damage and healing over time as much as possible.
- Learn as many ways that you can use . You can use it in concert with your other abilities (most notably your ) to force an opponent's Flash, you can use it in concert with your other abilities to spot or delay an opponent's Recall, and you can use it to keep an eye on the enemy jungler or other missing champions.
- Playing Against
- If you are playing a melee champion with no means of ranged CSing, you are most likely to lose most trades when grabs you and a good portion of your CS if you respect his pressure and he zones you off the waves. Keep track of his Summoner's and his ward patterns to give your Jungler the best chance to gank him.
- Be sure to keep a tab on 's items. If you notice him building Rylai's you will need to respect him especially after he completes it. You will not be able to escape his grip once he grabs you unless you blow some big CDs.
Tricks
- Ability Usage
- Use liberally to kill minions and waveclear, refunding some mana in the process. This can also be used for damaging an enemy champion significantly.
- 's delay and obvious effect makes it hard to land without assistance. By yourself, landing first is ideal. Aim carefully if you are planning to also use 's pull effect.
- Runes Usage
- Keystones
- provides with strong bursts of movement speed. This can help you retreat after a trade in-lane, or away from a poor teamfight. When engaging a fight instead, the movement speed helps you get closer for shotgunning and / .
- 's mana restoring effects makes it ideal for procs. The increased gold gain and various consumables are useful throughout the game, and is particularly strong in the isolated top lane.
- boosts 's laning phase, which can be lackluster due to 's longer cooldown at earlier levels. His ranged basic attacks make Aery easy to proc for constant harass.
- Trees
- An important rune path for
- mana topped up for most situations. is easy to stack with , and keeps his
- helps 's positioning. The adaptive damage boost is small but welcome, and can be improved with or allied bonuses.
- provides a lot of adaptive damage as the game goes on.
- can shore up 's laning phase.
that boosts his damage and provides some relevant perks.
- An important rune path for
- Provides sustain, movement speed boosts and utility.
- 's is highly useful in mid-game fights. Helping build into a and reducing its cooldown is also very welcome.
- Boots of Speed can sometimes hinder you during laning. , once obtained, helps keep up with foes. However, not being able to buy normal
- is a great boost in laning sustain, and props up your manapool to boost.
- procs off both and , and makes much harder to escape.
- has good synergy with Biscuits and Kleptomancy consumables.
- Provides sustain, movement speed boosts and utility.
- Generally taken as a secondary tree in harder matchups, granting
- is a very strong rune for resisting enemy trades in lane.
- health boost in lane, and transitions into adaptive damage from the mid-game onwards. provides a useful
- is highly useful against consistent ranged poke such as and .
better durability.
- Generally taken as a secondary tree in harder matchups, granting
- Item Usage
As a Battlemage at his best in melee/short range of the enemy, ability power, cooldown reduction and mana, while boosting survivability through health, defensive stats and utility.
prefers items that grant damage through- and
- Countering
- magic resistance will mitigate his damage. mostly deals magic damage; investing in
- Be wary about approaching Swain in melee/close range, as multiple bolt hits can deal surprisingly high damage.
- 's pull can target any immobilised champions, not just champions hit by . Be especially careful against all enemy crowd control, or risk getting pulled out of position and jumped on.
- Applying Grievous Wounds can neuter 's and healing.
- can save you from a well-placed .